


Taking an Oath

by aactionjohnny



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Goodbyes, M/M, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 09:25:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16489958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aactionjohnny/pseuds/aactionjohnny
Summary: Staying on-brand, Pete and Billy have a very unromantic romantic moment.





	Taking an Oath

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commission that I had a lot of fun doing! This ship owns my life these days please end me

**Taking An Oath**

 

“We’re supposed to be a  _ team, _ ” Pete protests, arms folded, sitting staunchly on his bed as he watches Billy shuffle about, packing his things. “I don’t get why I gotta stay here. Feels like I’m bein’ _ grounded  _ or somethin’.”

“Oh my god would you calm down?” Billy asks, furtively stuffing clothes into his backpack, not at all eager to look at the sad-puppy eyes Pete is most certainly giving him. “Because it’s too dangerous, I told you. We can’t both risk our lives, especially because there’s no reason for you to go. You’d just be risking your life for no reason.”

“N’ why is it so important that you risk  _ your  _ life? You’re not the only doctor in the world, ya know.” Pete knows how bitter his voice sounds, how cruel. He is like a child throwing a tantrum, not getting what he wants. And somehow even that embarrassing explanation is easier to swallow than the truth. That he’s worried, that he’s terrified. That if Billy is going to die, he’d like to be there with him. That he’s certain they cannot exist alone. 

“Because Rusty  _ asked  _ me to go. And I...I wanna do this, okay?” 

_ Want _ is a strong word. Billy stifles any speeches he has about ‘doing no harm’...Maybe it’s just his ego that drives him to fly thousands of miles across the world, into a warzone. To travel beneath the cover of night and perform a dangerous surgery in dismal conditions. 

“Who’re you supposed to operate on, again?” Pete asks, picking pills of lint off the comforter. 

“Old friend of Doctor Venture Sr.” 

“I thought all of ‘em left were our landlords.”

Billy gives him a dry glance and zips closed his bag. But he relents, sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose between his metal fingers.

“He’s a resistance leader. They’ve put a bomb in his head and I have to get it out.” There’s a timer that clicks and beeps. His associates have tried to determine just how long they have left before it goes off, and have come up with a figure too vague for anyone’s comfort.

Pete’s especially. Fuck whatever oath Billy had to take, and fuck whatever righteous attitude makes him so determined to save this guy’s life. None of it will matter if he gets blown to bits. Nothing will.

“Just...I dunno, be careful,” Pete pleads, withholding all the desperation he wishes he had the guts to express. At least Rusty isn’t here to make fun of him for getting emotional, to make jokes about just how pathetic and obvious it all is…

“White…” There falls an earnest, melancholy look on Billy’s face as he abandons the packed bag on his bed and walks toward Pete, resting a hand on his. “I have to do this. But I’m coming back.”

He’s suspended in the moment, terrified. Schrodinger's reconciliation, this, waiting for Pete to tighten those pale, skinny fingers around his own. He hates that little childish pout Pete has. Hates it almost as much as it makes his chest churn and bubble.

“Ya promise?” Pete asks, quiet, sheepish, turning his palm against Billy’s and grasping his hand. Finally,  _ finally _ . 

“I promise,” he says. It would be the right time to let go, to get back to packing and to sheer denial that his heart breaks to leave him here. In a fit of nerves, of love or whatever they’re calling it these days, he burrows against Pete’s waist and wraps his arms around his ribs. All of their embraces, growing so frequent of late, are silent. They can only express so much devotion at once, right? To hold one another and also speak would be too much, too sappy. Things have been unsaid for years. What’s a little longer? What’s one more dangerous trip into the unknown, what’s one more separation….

“But what if you don’t?” Pete says, cracking voice muffled by Billy’s hair. “What if you...ya know…”

“Then you can have all my stuff.”

“Shut up, I’m tryin’ to be serious here.”

Billy pulls away, looking up at Pete where he sits perched on the bed, and reaches his hands to either side of his head.

“It’s going to be alright.”

He walks away again, cracking his wrists, looking around their shared room for more things he ought to pack. Pete holds his breath, watching the way Billy worries all his belongings, inspects them as if they’re brand new before stuffing them indiscriminately into his bag. He finds he’s smiling at the sight, regardless of his fear. An ages-old lump in his throat rises, and he cannot stuff it back down.

“Marry me,” he says, and it is like thunder in the silence.

“ _ Excuse _ me?” Billy asks, breathless, dropping his bag onto the ground.

“When ya come back. Ya gotta marry me.” Pete doubles down, sliding off the bed to his feet, holding one hand staunchly to his chest. It’s too late for him to take it back, the idiot.

“Would you quit fucking around, White!?”

“I’m not kiddin’ ya, pally.” He gets closer, practically falling to his knees, gripping Billy’s arms as if he’s already getting on the plane. “Ain’t we kinda already? I mean…”

“...yeah…” Billy bites the insides of his cheeks, tries to keep a smile from forming. It’s stupid, and it’s silly, and it’s sudden. But somehow, hearing it, finally, he feels a heavy burden dissipate from off his small shoulders. Like he’s been carrying it around for years. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay I’ll marry you if I don’t fucking die!” he says, too loud, willing away the flush of his skin and the worry that his mother is just outside the door, listening and grinning. “Jesus, White, did you have to do this today?”

“Yeah, well, now you’ve gotta try extra hard not to get blown up.”

“That’s some ego you’ve got…”

Pete sighs, hands still resting on Billy’s arms, and he allows himself a sad little smile.

“I just...had to tell ya before ya went, is all,” he confesses. “I’m already not gonna be able to sleep until ya come back.”

Once again, Billy surrounds Pete’s cheeks with his hands. There’s a new sort of softness in his eye, an east to the wrinkles in his skin.

“When I come back we have a lot to talk about.”

“Yer tellin’ me…”

With a shared laugh, they fall in, close to one another, foreheads touching, fingers curling more needily around one another. The kiss is brief and shy, brand new and clumsy, but still it makes their toes curl and their elbows weak.

“I’ll come back. I have to.”

He  _ has _ to. He has to live, if only for more of this.

**Author's Note:**

> contact me @ aaction-johnny.tumblr.com for commissions!


End file.
